Creating Realistic Characters

by Harvey Stanbrough

A realistic character is just like a real human being, and the reader should be able to identify with the protagonist, the antagonist, and a minor character or two as soon as he meets them. The more quickly the reader identifies with the character, the more quickly he will become engaged in the story line. This doesn’t have to happen by accident. You can assign your characters real-life character traits.

12 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 15, 2011

About the author

Harvey Stanbrough was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After having survived a 21-year civilian-appreciation course in the US Marine Corps, Harvey managed to sneak up on a bachelor’s degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Harvey has written and published nine nonfiction ebooks on writing, including Punctuation for Writers and Writing Realistic Dialogue & Flash Fiction, which are also available in print, and his very popular The Essentials of Digital Publishing. His comprehensive poetry collection, Beyond the Masks, was nominated for the National Book Award and he’s published three other poetry collections. Finally, he’s published four short story collections (Vignettes from a C-130, Six Years in May, The Well, and Stories from the Cantina), plus numerous other short stories. He most enjoys writing magic realism, and one of his major characters, Juan-Carlos Salazár, actually has his own blog at CantinaTales.com. In all, Harvey's works have been nominated for the Frankfurt Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Pushcart Prize and the National Book Award. Harvey spoke at writers’ conferences around the country for several years, but now he teaches his Writing the World Seminars mostly in southeast Arizona. However, he plans to offer those in webinars soon.